Spike TV Executives Attend Bellator 48

UNCASVILLE, Conn. -- The presence of Spike TV executives at
Saturday night’s
Bellator Fighting Championships event in Connecticut stoked
speculation that the tournament-based promotion could land on the
MMA-friendly cable network after the UFC leaves Spike next year for
Fox.

Spike TV senior vice president of sports and specials Brian Diamond
attended the Bellator event, and spent time in the production truck
and at cageside. Diamond declined a Sherdog.com request for
comment, saying he was “working.”

“They’ve been at all of our shows,” Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said
of Spike honchos. “They’re part of the MTV networks family. Our
deal is with MTV Networks, it’s not a deal that we did with MTV 2,
or a deal that we did with MTV Tres. So we’ve been able to leverage
that expertise.”

Rebney said Spike representatives have assisted in tightening the
production elements of Bellator’s television show. He said the
promotion is free to call on such assistance because Spike and MTV2
are in the same family of networks, both owned by media giant
Viacom. Spike’s pro wrestling program has been plugged on
Bellator’s MTV2 broadcasts regularly since the promotion started on
the channel in March.

Asked if Bellator would need to negotiate a new contract to move to
Spike, Rebney responded, “That’s a good question.

“I mean, I don’t know,” he said. “I know what the specifics are of
our agreement with MTV2, but from a transitional perspective, our
deal is with the bigger corporate entity and they make all of the
programming decisions. [I’m a] big fan of Spike and an enormous fan
right now of MTV2 as well.”

Rebney said a possible move to Spike was in the back of his mind
when striking the deal earlier this deal with MTV2, which the
promotion was rumored to choose after discussions with FX.

“When you look at any kind of potential alliance with a large
corporate entity and you’re making that move, you’re always
thinking in the back of your mind, ‘Where could this end up, or
where could it push? What could they decide from a programming
perspective to do?’ We were all kind of aware of the fact that the
UFC had a home with Spike and potentially might move to Comcast,
might buy G4, might end up with ESPN, might end up with Fox. So
there’s a lot of things in the back of your mind.”